


Calavera Kisses in the Night

by WolfjawsWriter



Series: ¡Viva México, C*brones! [1]
Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Explicit Language, Ghost Kissing, Ghosts, Graphic Description, Kissing, Mexican AU, Other, Swearing, deep love for my beautiful country expressed in references to things from it, explicit descriptions of true legends, lots of coffee, machetes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 00:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfjawsWriter/pseuds/WolfjawsWriter
Summary: Every case is different to the last one. Every ghost is different from each other. Every soul has a different story.And some ghosts have different intentions to the others.





	Calavera Kisses in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Name Translations:  
Anthony - Antonio  
George - Jorge  
Lucy - Lucia  
Holly - (no translation)  
Quill - Guillermo/Guill  
Skull - Calavera/Calaca

The client was soon to arrive.

35 Portland Row was properly swept from top to bottom _(at least the ground floor)_ and mopped till it shined with the morning sun that filtered through the open curtains. The strange, ancient masks and old, tribal tools that hanged from every wall of the halls and living room was dusted to sparkling. The living room's couches had had their hand-knit decorations placed upon their tops, the cushions puffed comfortably on them, a fine set of chinaware composed of a big teapot, creamer, sugar bowl, mugs and then many different plates, all white porcelain painted with intricate flowers of all colors, though mostly azure blue. A big plate of baked goods and sweets sat beside it, neatly arranged.

Our equipment for interviews was placed on the edge of the table, ready to be taken for notes. We had placed them there the day before as to make sure we didn’t forget them during the actual interview. It would be embarrassing if we did.

Currently I was sitting at the kitchen table with my drawing supplies before me, a cup of coffee right beside my pencils and colors, holding them in place as I quickly alternated between them, my hand nimbly dropping and picking up the next color I would use just as the first one touched the clothed table. I would stop occasionally to take a sip from my coffee or a nibble on a coco cookie from the plate at the center of the table.

Beside me, nose buried deep inside the file of the case we’d be receiving today, Jorge kept writing unreadable things on the Thinking Cloth. Probably all the tiny details of the case that no one else bothered to read but would later come in handy.

To my other side, hand drumming against the table beside a steaming cup of coffee, was Lockwood. The other hand held a magazine up to his face, his eyes moving slowly across the gossip-filled pages as he read it in silence, occasionally raising the mug to his lips and taking a long, serene sip from the bitter beverage.

Warm, fresh sunrise light filtered inside the room between the fruit-patterned curtains that hung from the baby-blue walls.

The morning silence was only broken minutes later by the clear ringing of the door’s bell.

“They’re here” Lockwood pushed himself gracefully to his feet and pranced out of the kitchen, Jorge and me following towards the living room, not quite as enthusiastically. We were of course happy to have a new case, they are always exciting and to so some extent enjoyable, but they were very tiring.

A few moments later our leader entered the cozy room with another man following after him.

“_Padre_ Gallardo” He spoke in that strong manner of his, the one that heartily commanded respect and authority. Not that anyone in the room would try to defy him for it “this are my _compañeros_; Lucia Carlyle and Jorge Cubbins, thank you for coming to us”

Middle aged, with just barely any greying hairs in his jet black locks, and dressed in that casual manner that actually seemed just a little more formal than the situation required, the white telltale lancel around his neck declaring his profession, the priest nodded his head respectfully at us. He sat down on one of the chairs while Jorge filled the mugs with the scalding, bitter coffee, offering one to each of us, which we all took gratefully.

Lockwood draped his long self on his favorite armchair, his head covering sight of the beautiful hand-knit decoration that rested on the top of its backrest.

“So, _padre_, would you tell us more about your problem? Your case’s file was incredibly brief” He took a sip of his cup and one of the _conchas_ from the plate on the table.

“Of course, _señor_ Lockwood” Our client lowered his cup after a long swig of the rich drink, the sound of his voice a deeper sound than you’d expect from him - like the deep rumbling from the innards of the ground itself, soothing and pleasant “you see, we seem to be having a ghost appearing in the church I’m currently preaching at, the _Parroquia de Nuestra Señora del Socorro_; one of our novices, the youngest one, little Maria Carmella, claims to have seen it repeatedly during her evening chores at the chapel”

We payed keen attention to his words between our quiet drinking of coffee, Jorge taking notes on a small notebook as he bit into a _galleta de hojaldre_.

After another taste of coffee, the man continued “the poor Sister, this occurrences have given her some terrible nerves; she can’t concentrate on her prayers or her chores, she’s always looking out for it, fearing she might see the wandering soul again among the pews of the chapel”

“How old is Sister Maria Carmella?” Lockwood asked, placing his mug on the armrest.

“Barely nineteen, she joined us at an early age after all” Padre Gallardo nodded faintly, his thoughts running away from the conversation for a moment “like most of our novices do”

“Did she or any other of the novices notice any other strange changes happening in the later hours?”

“No, or, at least not that I have received any complains about”

“Tell us a little more about what you have been told then”

**——**

Ghosts weren’t a strange thing to find anywhere in the city of course. Not since the Problem began and spread across the world. What could be strange however was the way in which ghosts came in, at least for Mexico in particular.

Most of all the world’s countries that were affected by the Problem had been infested with malicious, aggressive ghosts that Touched anything and anyone they could find during the long nights. They had to be searched for, hunted down, brought out and incinerated out of existence in a furnace for the sake of the population. Mexico was however one of the few countries that did not prove of ghost incineration and preferred to develop its own means of dealing with the otherworldly beings.

As soon as the Problem first began manifesting in the Spanish-speaking society, the government took action to find a way of preventing the deaths of its citizens, thus establishing the POFACALOCE; Phantasm and Other Fantastical Apparitions Care-taking and Lookout Center in the capital, with a subsidiary office in each main city of every state.

Or POFA Offices as they were commonly referred to.

Each Office had many functionaries to their disposition, working hard everyday from sunrise to sunset to sort the registered agencies and teams of agents before the nightfall for each case, for you see, no agent or agency worked alone. All working agents had to be registered into POFA to be able to work, and either mark themselves as independent or into an agency so they could begin to receive their assigned cases. Most agents, like myself, preferred to be under the conformities of residing and working with a stable team, so when Lockwood invited me to work with him and his team I wasn’t hesitant to say yes.

I was hesitant after seeing it was only him, me and another boy named Jorge but I got over it quick enough.

Now though it wasn’t just us. We had gotten another agent over time, Holly Munro, who had recently moved in with her family from America and needed somewhere to work, and after taking a very swift look through her files, Lockwood offered her a position with us. Personally I think he didn’t actually read anything that was in her information, unless he can read _that_ fast, but I’m sure not even George can know what a whole page says after only taking a second-lasting glance. It took her some good time to learn and understand the way we did things here in Mexico, but she eventually acclimatized with our methods. And only a few months later we began working more-often-than-occasionally with newly-independent agent, our oldest rival and sudden new friend, Guillermo Kipps. He had, for a long time been working with the largest agency the POFA had registered in their lists, the Fleites Agency, but had quit at seeing how he had been loosing use and importance among their agents.

The both of them were good enough agents, with decent enough Talents (at least for Holly, since Guill had lost most of his by now) and willing to work under Lockwood’s leadership as peacefully as were Jorge and I are, so we didn’t usually have problems at work, and this case was no exception.

We arrived to the _Parroquia_ two hours before the sun set behind the colorful buildings of the modest, antique-styled neighborhood, the centenarian church raising imposingly before us, shadowing us as well as the cobblestone street under its high bell towers, the bronce bells inside them residing quietly, waiting for the moment in which the next hour would have to be announced.

Right beside the ancient parish was another, just a little smaller building, timeworn looking as well, with flower vines clinging to the walls for dear life as the flowers slowly lost theirs to the chilling season change, only small patches of wall showing still from under them, the windows shinning with the inner lights already on. It was the convent of _Las Hermanas de Nuestra Señora del Socorro_.

We were kindly welcomed there by the warm smiling faces of the nuns, framed by their white habits and clad in their shapeless black gowns with the beads of their _rosarios_ clicking around their waists as they told us what little they knew about the ghost that haunted their church before leading us to the room in which young Sister Maria Carmella slept. It was hard to get her to tell us what she had experienced during those nights, and we had to separate the actual facts from all her prayers and pleadings for the souls of the unrested, but we managed to get what we needed. Thus, we got to work.

The Parish was perhaps four or five hundred years old and it showed on the embellishments; about a hundred meters long, there were twenty five altars along the side walls, including the main altar at the very back, each one dedicated to a different Saint or appearance of _Nuestra Señora_, with large paintings and sculptures of said devoted hanging in their respective altars with _veladoras_ and incense burning slowly before them in the name of uncountable souls and prayers dedicated to them. The rest of the walls were covered in patterns of golden paint, framing other portraits and statues around the chapel, forming what in the poor lighting appeared to be flowers and leaves. In the middle of the chapel, right where the pews divided into the frontal and back areas, raised a massive wooden podium with a colossal pipe organ resting on the top, the metal-looking tubes raising predominantly all the way into one of the many cherubs-and-angels-painted domes of the church.

With a proper shove, we closed the heavy, iron-lined doors, promptly locking ourselves inside the sacramental building.

“_This place reeks of death_” A strange yet familiar buzz awakened in my head, bringing with it the croaking, raspy voice of a certain cooped up someone.

“Its a church, _Calaca_, it has niches somewhere in it, of course it reeks of death” I kept my voice a low whisper, a sense of wrongness bothering me in my chest at the way the sound interrupted the silence of the sacred shrine.

“_Yes, yes; niches, the boring type of wall-holes you mean. Back in my day we liked to make it fun for and during all family gatherings, churches were placed right in the middle of fields so the cemetery could grow around it, you know, like flower fields_”

“Right, flowers” I dropped by heavy workbag onto the marble-lookalike stone floor, kneeling before it so I could peer inside. Which might not have been the wisest decision, for the skull was currently poking and twirling the only eyeball it had with a tongue-like ectoplasm-made appendage. Not exactly a charming sight “will you stop that?”

“_Stop what? I’m bored here, Lu! Do you know just how much _hueva_ I get from being stuck in this jar? Always in the same jar, never going anywhere fun, just coming and going between cases, helping you gang of _cholos_ \- then you don’t even thank me!_”

“What do we have to thank you for? More often than not you’re rooting for us to die”

“_But does that stop me from helping you? No. It does not_”

_Calavera_ was unpredictable like that more often than not. And more often than I liked. It had a knack for getting on my nerves on the worst way possible, of talking to me in the least opportune moment and saying the most unreasonable things it could think of. Literally nothing that came out of its deceased jaw clicking made sense. Not that it ever actually needed to move its jaw to talk, all it said only ever sounded only inside my head and thus had no need to move its jaw at all. It still liked to do it though, probably because of just how annoying the clicking gets. Honestly, I am surprised no one has tried to bury it somewhere in the backyard for it.

I pulled the jar out of the bag and placed it beside me, the skull inside it glaring up at me maliciously with its single eye, the lime green ectoplasm around it swirling peeved and making that tongue-like appendage drag against the glass. The display would have normally made anyone look away in disgust, but I’m perfectly used to it now, besides, even with the gruesomest acts, a skull that had pink and red giant roses painted to the sides of its head would not scare anybody.

A wide chain circle was made before the wooden doors of the parish, in which we all sat in with our bags beside us, our thermos open by our hands, the slow steam of hot coffee raising from then, the smell mixing nicely with the scent of the faint incense from the altars. Holly brought out several small candles, the ones we would use for work, and lighted them up, giving us enough brightness to see each other’s faces.

“According to the report and Sister Maria Carmella’s words” I winced quietly as Jorge began reading out loud from his notes and the file of the case, his voice at full volume and easily echoing inside the cavernous cupolas “the ghost was that of a fully grown man, always seen kneeled at one part or another of the church, most likely praying. He didn’t try to approach her, this of course could be due to the fact that she never tried to get close to him. Also, ghost fog forms around the chantries, miasma builds around the pews, and there seems to be what she described as ‘the feeling of being abandoned by God, a loneliness so forlorn it could have dragged my soul to despair, a distress far greater than I have ever known and that I wish to never feel again’, which is most likely malice”

“Did you found who our ghost could be?” Lockwood took a long sip from his thermos.

“Unfortunately, not completely” The researched brought out two different photos from his notebook, both depicting a grown man looking at the camera from one angle or another “I managed to narrow it greatly, but I’m not sure which could be”

“Will there be a possibility there’s more than one of them?” Holly asked, her voice lower than the others had been, most likely bothered by the thought of perturbing the sacredness of the place.

“Not likely. At least from what we know its only one ghost thats been appearing”

We all nodded, taking slow, scalding tastes of our drinks as we took in the two pictures of the men.

“Now, the chapel is 97 meters long and 53 wide without counting the three meters every altar’s depth” Jorge brought out a blueprint and placed it on the stone floor, the candles’ light shinning just enough to be able to see the white markings on it “we’ll have a better chance if we split up”

“Alright, then we’ll do that” Lockwood placed down his thermos, closing it with a single flick of his wrist “we’ll place four chain circles; one before the main altar, two at the sides of the organ podium, and one before the frontal doors, that way we can have more visibility over the pews and altars. We’ll meet back here in an hour”

It took but a couple of minutes for us to split, leaving the safety of the chain circle we were in to go make another at our posts for the night; Guill and Holly took the sides of the pipe organ’s podium, Lockwood and Jorge staying at the front doors, and me going over to the main altar.

Honestly I would have preferred another spot in the church, like on the podium, or at the back of the pews, or simply any other that wasn’t as crowded by mercy-pleading, always-suffering-faced statues as was the main altar, with the giant cross held high at the back and all the sworded and battle-posed angels distributed on the various ledges, all looking down at the center a few steps before the table in which the priest performed the rituals. The place on which I had to place my chain circle.

Normally the statues were a pleasant enough to look at, the symbolism of their tormented expressions heavily overwhelming the disturbance they could cause to any witness, but that was only when the light of the sun was there to brighten their appearance. Once the sky was plunged into the deep darkness of the night there was nothing one could do to enliven the grief-plagued grimaces and pain-stricken guises, not even the gentle light of a candle.

In silence, I overlooked the whole front of the parish, the old wooden pews standing in two straight columns that would go all the way to the back around the podium in which the impressive organ stood, the pipes raising menacingly above it into one of the domes. A bewitching sight even in the crushing darkness we were in.

“Do you detect anything?” I tried to ignore the way _Calavera_ kept twirling its eye around.

“_Hmm, yeah, a few things_” It commented distractedly “_like the way you keep trembling like a _Chihuahua_ in winter without its _colcha_ San Marcos_”

“I am not!” I hissed as quietly as possible, lowering my head.

“_Yes you are, _chamaca babosa”

“Oh my god, why you are so _fresa_?!” I gave it one last huff for good measure and turned away, determined not to let its stupid commentary get to me. _Calavera_ didn't return my insult, simply turning its floating self to another direction, likely thinking on ignoring me for a good while to try and get me to ‘crawl back at them begging when I needed help’, which of course I would never do.

I decided to forget about it until it calmed down - it wouldn’t want to speak anything helpful if it was angry and I certainly wasn’t going to speak to it when it was angry if the only thing it would do was whine. So, I pushed its constant psychic buzz from my mind, closed my eyes, and decided to concentrate in any other sign that arose inside the quiet church. The ghost wouldn’t appear otherwise of course; for more it probably would have liked to, spirits aren’t able to sneak on agents, not even if they were poltergeists. After all, its in their natures.

A ghost is of course a restless soul that for one reason or another cannot or chooses not to move on from the living world, most of them being for having something they wanted to do in life but couldn’t. Then there are types of ghosts. Most people think there are two ways of classifying ghosts; weak ghosts and strong ghosts. Those who cause trouble and those who don't. While there is some truth to that belief, it is a wide misconception of the truth and could lead to much terrible mistakes.

Weak ghosts were never a problem, they were easily identified, easily found and easily taken care of by the team of agents of POFA’s choice, they rarely caused a death and were more often than not peaceful souls. Strong ghosts however, they were the ones that brought the fun to our work.

Some strong ghosts, from the lesser of them, can be peaceful and actually helpful, and are thus left to roam our world as they please, like the case of _La Planchada_; a poor, nightshift-working nurse that died crushed between two elevator doors as she was about to leave that hospital’s emergency ward on that fateful morning, only to be found hours later when the elevator opened again. Her spirit has since been wandering that emergency ward, looking after and nursing any unlucky person that finds themselves there, healing them fully for when the sun is up.

Most of them, however, are not spirits willing to help those alive and dedicated their cursed deaths to tormenting those that crossed their path. And sometimes, these paths were too wide to avoid their wrath. _La Llorona_ was one such ghost; a woman who drowned her own two children in hopes this would make her befitting for the man she loved, only to be rejected and later on consumed by agonizing guilt. Her spirit came back even before the Problem, but only as a weak shade that haunted the corner of the eye of anyone unlucky to be out at night, her cries echoing feeble in their ears. The Problem’s beginnings only made her phantasm stronger, the power of her anguished soul becoming strong enough to torment the entire village in which she once lived; children were taken away from the streets and their beds by her after sundown, the only remaining evidence of her assault being the nerve-wrecking howling _‘!Ay, mis hijos¡’_ that rang even in young adults’ ears until the sun came back up.

She was hunted down by one of POFA’s best teams; her capture took an entire week to accomplish, with the team recording down patterned behavior and unique qualities before they manage to corner her in the abandoned church she finished her routinely path every night, finding the source inside the oldest niches hidden under it.

Other ghosts were simply better left alone, no matter how dangerous they were. The cases in which the rest of the living people had to be the ones removed from the endangered area were rare, but high-standing. The most memorable was the one of _La Isla de las Muñecas_; incredibly close to the village _La Llorona_ lived in was a great lake covered with _chinampas_ that elongated as far as the eye could see, some bigger than others, some even empty from the crops and flowers the farmers would grow on them. One of these bigger, tree-covered _chinampas_ was taken by a man rumored mad, who built a shack on it for him and his pretty little doll to live in. Everyday he would leave his little isle to go into the village’s market and buy a new doll, taking it back with him and placing it somewhere in his meager shed, until the space of the shed ran out and he began to place them outside, sitting on the ground, or hanging from the tree’s branches, or nailed and tied to the trunks, covering in mud and leaves as the time flew by and more dolls were slowly added. Eventually, solitary and sick, the man died, unnoticed by his peers until they observed his absence in the markets. His spirit raised along the Problem, angered and resentful, and hooked to his precious dolls. Although separated from the rest of the village, the few people that had taken to living close and even on its nightmarish province were quickly massacred by the phantom-possessed marionettes, making the isle an inhabitable and inhospitable land.

With thousands and thousands of dolls from which to choose from, the massive team that was sent in to neutralize the poltergeist took long days and even longer nights to search through them, and eventually gave up when half of its team had been slaughtered by the dolls, thus leaving the horror isle to its own devices.

_Calavera_ was however nothing like any ghost any of us had ever seen. Not Guill with his longer years of experience in the job of fantastical apparition hunting, or Holly with her experience in different methods and classifications of ghosts, or George with his extensive and bizarre research on spirits, or Lockwood with all the strange and diverse objects and memorabilia his parents had collected in their years of life and stored in their house.

The pestering, irritating and sinister bottled ghost of the _Calaca_ was capable of reasoning and speaking unlike any ghost proven real, even if most of what it said was absolute nonsense.

_‘Oh Padre…’_

I opened my eyes immediately. _Calavera’s_ buzzing had gone quiet beside me. Even inside my chain circle I could feel a tortuous cold seeping through its iron links that kept me safe, a whitish fog swirling gently outside.

The ghost was here.

_‘…perdóneme padre…’_

The lines of pews before me were slowly illuminated by the unnatural glow of the death - the same lime green glow _Calavera_ gave off whenever he graced us with his aggravating existence - as the form of a man leisurely came to be. He was knelt on one of the prie-dieu’s of the long benches, his head bowed low between his arms, hands held together in a tight grip.

_‘…no quise hacerlo…’_

I stood up inside my circle, fetching my equipment from my bag. Calavera was eyeing me now, his only eye eerily filled with a glint of something akin to glee as I took one step outside the chain.

_‘…perdóneme padre…’_

Waiting a few seconds for any sign of change, I kept my eyes firmly on the man’s ghost as he kept in place, the quiet cries ringing in my inner ears.

_‘…no quise hacerlo…’_

Each slow step I took was promptly ignored by the spirit, a growing sense of sorrow and misery engulfing me as I advanced. I could feel the cold of the parish increasing the closer I came to the mourning spirit and the smell of incense weakening.

_‘…oh Padre…’_

My iron machete clicked gently against my leg, the curved tip hitting harmlessly against my knee, forgotten as I moved past the seats, the two pieces of equipment I would need resting in my hand; a pen and notepad.

_‘…oh…Padre…’_

The last step I took forwards was the last I needed to be within safe distance from the ghost - but I didn’t get there.

Cold wind hit my face like a bucket of icy water, having a split of second to encounter my self with a pair of black wholes bored deep into an torture-carved face and I was thrown off my feet by the burst of wind, a shrill pained cry exploding in my ears before my back hit a wall.

Screams and laugher echoed in my head and ears, all different and yet all seeming to come from the same source.

Notepad thrown aside, as soon as I hit down on the ground my hand grabbed for my machete’s handle and wretched it free from my belt, barely having time to slice through the ghost that jumped onto me.

“Lucia!”

Ectoplasm rained on my clothes and limbs with an earsplitting screech as the phantasm vanished in the air. I covered my face with my arm and breathed out carefully, my breath, labored and slightly bit hurtful, coming out in small puffs. Footsteps thudded against the floor, coming ever closer to me.

“Lucy, are you alright?!”

A hand grasped my arm and moved it warily away from my face.

I groaned, face scrunched lightly “…_me di en la madre_…”

“We know; we heard you hit the lecturn”

“Where does it hurt?” I felt a couple hands grasp me and pull me upright, _Calavera’s_ mad cackling ringing maliciously in my head.

My head spun as I was heaved upright “_puta madre_…everywhere”

Holly knelt at my side, looking over me in search for injuries “yes, but anywhere specifically?”

“hmm…my head”

“What happened Lucy?”

After Holly took a quick look through the small bruises I got and told them about the ghost; about its apparition, its apparently calm demeanor, and the way it suddenly turned onto you.

“Suddenly?” Jorge asked, taking off his glasses and cleaning them before glaring with piqued interest at me once more.

“Yeah, like it hadn’t noticed me before”

“But it must have, they always know”

“Then what, he was ignoring me?”

Ghosts have facts. Like any other thing and like any human being, ghosts have facts, things that are true and can’t be changed about them. One of those facts is that ghosts can’t reason (except Calavera of course - his somehow an exception to most of the rules and facts about ghosts), and thus since they can’t reason they run on instinct alone, whichever those were for spirits. For more that it would have likely wanted to be able to form a strategy, this one ghost was no different to any other and was not able to create one. There was no way it could have been choosing to ignore me.

“You know it can’t have, Lucy”

I opened my mouth to counter back, but Lockwood stepped in.

“What ghosts can and can’t do isn’t what matters. Whats important is that we remember it won’t attack us until we’re within arm’s reach from it. We’ll have to wait again for it to appear, so, lets go back to our positions and wait; when it comes, whoever sees it first will call for the rest of us to come help them find the source”

A few nods later I was back in my circle, safe inside its iron-y confines, the others walking towards theirs around and back of the podium. The machete was back on my belt, thumping gently against my thigh and then clicking on the floor when I sat down, the imprisoned _Calaca_ beside me chuckling wickedly.

“_I wasn’t aware dogs could fly_”

“They don’t”

“_Really, cause I’m pretty sure I just saw a _Chihuahua_ get thrown away like an old ragdoll_”

“_Chinga a tu madre_, will you?”

It cackled again like an old lady, swirling inside its jar as the cold began to build again outside. I took my eyes off its dreadful being to look at my surroundings again, focusing and blocking everything that could hold my Talents back.

‘_…perdóneme padre…_’

“_Its coming back_”

“Are you going to help me capture it?” Fog gathered around the circled, seeping inside and around my ankles. Standing once more, I peered over the church in search for the place in which the ghost would appear next.

‘_…no quise hacerlo…_’

“_Do you want me to?_”

“I would really appreciate it if you could be truly helpful for once” The parish was too big however; if the man’s spirit could really appear anywhere then there was almost no way to tell just in which of the pews, or before which altar he would come to be.

‘_…oh Padre…_’

“_I always help you!_”

“No you don’t!” The quiet sensations of distress and misery trickled in the air, dripping and pooling at the base of my stomach and leisurely filling me with the sensations of incredible regret I had felt before.

‘_…perdóneme padre…_’

“_Well I’m not helping you if there’s not anything in for me_”

“What could there possibly be in there for you?”

“Lucy!” My head wiped towards the new sound, seeing Holly standing in her own circle amidst the darkness “its here!”

“_You won’t find its source there_”

I pulled my bag up against my bag, grabbing the jar against my chest “you know where the source is?!”

“_I can feel it_” Following the small glimmer of light from a candle, I raced out of my circle.

“So, where is it?”

“_You’ll have to do something for me_”

“I’m not letting you out of the jar!”

“_I never asked that you do_”

Holly took my hand once I stepped in beside her, pointing me in the direction of the apparition; kneeling again like a martyr, head bowed between his arms as he held his hands together in plea.

“_I just want a tiny little something, meaningless really, but something_”

“Whatever it is it cannot be good”

Jorge and Lockwood were only a couple steps away from the ectoplasmic man, its glow illuminating their faces even from afar. Their machetes were out in their hands and ready to attack.

“_Well then, you’ll just have to look around this whole church for the source on your own_”

“Look for the source!” Lockwood called right before he stepped before the chains. Nothing changed when he did, neither when Jorge went after him - an unsettling silence ringing around us as the ghost apparently waited for them to be within its reach.

On the other side of the podium I could see Guill, and beside me I could see Holly, beginning what would likely be a futile search that would go on for hours and hours on end, and could most likely extend even to the next night!

_Calavera_ was now peacefully swirling inside its jar, for once, and exactly when I didn’t need it to, minding its own business.

“Where’s the source?” I brought it up to my eye level and spoke as imposingly as I could, hoping to inspire at least some manner of authority. Which was of course wasted on the sneering _Calaca_.

“_Will you do what I tell you?_”

“No, just tell me”

“_Hah!_ No te voy a decir ni madres _unless you do what I ask_” The sole eye it had twirled wickedly inside its socket, the malicious glint in it glaring at me despite its random rotations.

“I’m not letting you out _del maldito bote!_ Get over it!” My voice raised nearly to a shout.

“_But all I want…_” the ghost’s forehead pressed against the jar’s glass “_…is a kiss_”

My mouth twisted in a disgusted grimace “In your dreams, _Calaca_”

“_Good luck finding that source then!_”

There was a deep ghoulish screech somewhere behind me, pulling my attention away from the spirit in my hands and towards the one that was currently hovering menacingly above Lockwood, Jorge and Guill, who had apparently joined a moment ago, and trying to grab at them with its murderous Touch. Holly had only moved a small way away from where she had started looking, her hands meticulously touching and prodding and pushing around for any indication of the source.

It would take too much with only two off us looking.

“Is there anything else you want?” I shook the jar in my hands, effectively getting Calavera’s attention.

“_First of all,_ chamaca pendeja_, do not shake me like that, my complexion’s delicate-_”

“You don’t have a complexion!”

“_And second; no, I do not want anything, I want my kiss_”

I groaned loudly, frustrated between glaring into its empty-socket-twirling-eye stare and my companions around me “I can’t kiss you! You don’t have a face, or- or even lips! Besides, you’re inside a silver-glass jar!”

“_Just pretend the jar is my face and - ta da! You’ve got yourself a handsome man to kiss!_”

Even though it wouldn’t get me any farther from it, I took a step back, grimacing disgustedly. On one hand I didn’t want to place my lips on the dirty glass that had probably seen its multitude of germs, filthy cabinets, god knows how many scientists had put their hands on it, and just what sort of experiments had Jorge undergone with it that actually touched its surface. On the other hand, what choice did I had? If I didn’t do it we’d likely spend an entire week searching the whole pew-area, plus the altars and the private chapels, we couldn’t waste a whole week on this particular ghost when we had more cases waiting to be taken care of after this one.

Something resembling a pair of eyebrows made from ectoplasm wiggled at me from inside the jar, just over where the one eye and the empty socket were. My body cringed slightly.

“…fine, but you’ll tell me right after!”

“I promise”

After another quick look at my struggling friends I turned myself back to the jar, watching the human face that floated gently over the old bone, staring at me with the most shit-eating grin it had ever given me. So I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against the cool silver-glass.

The first few seconds I felt nothing but cold against my lips; a plain surface, empty and inanimate. Then, it all changed.

A warmth crept up the tips of my mouth and all over me, tingling on my spine and making my stomach tighten in excitement. The flat sensation morphed into a softness I hadn’t experienced touching me in this manner before, heat creeping up my face as the new sentiment slowly registered inside me. Suddenly I wasn’t standing in the middle of a centuries old parish anymore, in the middle of the haunting of a pleading ghost.

Then a crisp of electricity sparked at my lips and ran over my body like a bolt. The hair in the nape of my neck stood on edge. My stomach did a somersault. A spark went off inside me.

“_In the altar of _La Virgen del Roble”

I opened my eyes again. They stared directly into the lively eye and black socket of _Calavera_, its ectoplasmic smirk and the twinkle in its glare making my face grow hotter despite the giant room’s arctic chill.

“Whe- where?”

“_The altar of _La Virgen del Roble”

Placing the jar under my arm and making sure that my friends were still holding up, which they apparently were, I took Holly by her arm and dragged her over to the mentioned chantry. We spent a couple of minutes on our knees there, prodding and probing the floor stones and checking around the statues and behind the paintings with care until we finally found it - a small golden signet ring with an craving inside that read ‘_Hermanos de una sola tierra_’, cold as a ice cube.

Sealed and safely stored inside one of our bags, we put away all our equipment and left the ancient parish. Nothing was mentioned of what I did with the ghost’s jar during the haunting, hopefully because nobody saw it. I really hoped nobody saw it.

As for Calavera, it didn’t say anything the rest of the haunting, or the rest of the night. It simply floated around its cage, staring at me with the most pompous, stuck up and nefarious smile.

That _hijo de puta_.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations and meanings:  
Padre - priest  
Compañeros - companions  
Concha - baked good decorated in a seashell-look-alike manner  
Señor - Mister/sir  
Parroquia de Nuestra Señora del Socorro - Parish of Our Lady of the Help (*Not a real church, inspired on the Catedral of Puebla)  
Galleta de hojaldre - cookie made with puff pastry and covered with sugar.  
Las Hermanas de Nuestra Señora del Socorro - Sisters of Our Lady of the Help (*not a real convent)  
Rosario - Rosary  
Nuestra Señora - Our Lady (Virgin Mary)  
Veladora - prayer candles  
Calaca/Calavera - skull  
Hueva - (slang for) idleness  
Cholo - (slang for) gangster  
Chihuahua - Mexican dog  
Colcha - blanket  
Chamaca babosa - stupid girl  
Fresa - (slang) diva  
La Planchada - The Ironed Lady (true legend)  
La Llorona - The Wailing Woman (true legend)  
‘Ay, mis hijos’ - ‘Alas, my children’  
La Isla de las Muñecas - The Doll Isle (true legend)  
Chinampa - Land of little extension built in a lake by placing a layer of stone, then one of reeds and another of land on top, in which vegetables and flowers are grown.  
‘Oh Padre’ - ‘Oh Father’  
‘No quise hacerlo’ - ‘I didn’t want to do it’  
‘Perdóneme Padre’ - ‘Forgive me Father’  
‘Me di en la madre’ - (slang) ‘I hit myself very badly’  
Puta madre - holy fuck  
‘Chinga a tu madre’ - (slang) ‘fuck off’  
‘No te voy a decir ni madres’ - ‘I ain’t telling you shit’  
‘Del maldito bote’ - ‘from the fucking jar’  
Chamaca pendeja - Stupid girl  
La Virgen del Roble - the Virgin of the Oak (actual Virgin Mary)  
Hermanos de una sola Tierra - Brothers from a single land  
Hijo de puta - Son of a bitch


End file.
